Controversial Yekaternburg murder probe completed

Russian investigators have done all they could, official says

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Photo ITAR-TASS/ Anton Bytsenko

YEKATERINBURG, August 21 (Itar-Tass) - Probe into the murder of Olga Yermakova, mother of the boy found on the roadside near Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, last year, has been completed, investigator Maxim Lebedev told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

On September 21, 2012, a boy was found near a forest in the outskirts of Yekaterinburg. He said his stepfather had left him on the road, promising to return and collect him after buying some food. The stepfather never turned up. The boy now stays in his father's apartment in St.Petersburg. On October 6, investigators found the body of the boy's mother in her house in the village of Kotovras. Forensic experts said she had died of blunt force trauma to the head and neck as well as skull fracture.

Lebedev said criminal case materials had been forwarded to the Prosecutor General's Office. It will pass them to Tajikistan where the suspect, Tajik national Davler Vatanov, is hiding.

"We received an official answer from Tajikistan's Interior Ministry, which is ready to review the case. The Russian investigators have done all they could. Now it's up to Tajikistan to decide on the punishment for the suspected killer. In Russia, he would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in a tight security prison," the investigator said.

A regional Investigative Committee official said there is the Minsk Convention on the extradition of criminals, but it has no effect in the Olga Yermakova murder case. Under its Constitution, Tajikistan does not extradite its citizens to other countries, hence the decision to hand over the case to the Tajik authorities.